Julian Huppert
Main Page: Julian Huppert (Liberal Democrat - Cambridge)Department Debates - View all Julian Huppert's debates with the Department for Transport
(12 years, 7 months ago)
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Caroline Flint (Don Valley) (Lab)
I beg to move an amendment, at the end of the Question to add:
“but believe that the Gracious Speech fails to help families, squeezed households and pensioners to deal with the cost of living crisis and the double-dip recession; regret that cuts to feed-in tariffs and the Warm Front scheme mean that families and pensioners who are paying higher electricity and gas bills have been abandoned by the Government; call on your Government to ensure that energy companies meet their obligations and provide the cheapest tariffs for over 75s, to protect small business owners, to ensure the Green Deal is offered fairly to all consumers and cuts bills to increase competition in the energy market to drive down energy bills for all; urge your Government to reverse their out of touch decision to increase rail fares by three per cent above inflation in 2013 and 2014, and to allow train companies to increase train fare prices by a further five per cent; call on your Government to ensure that train operators cap all regulated fares fairly across all journeys so that no regulated train fare increase is more than one per cent above inflation, to reform the bus market by extending to the rest of England London-style powers to regulate fares, protect services and to require operators to provide a concessionary scheme for young people; and further call on your Government to help hard pressed motorists by temporarily reducing VAT to cut fuel prices and boost the economy.”.
This Government promised recovery, but they have delivered recession—a recession made in Downing street: the worst unemployment in 16 years; 1 million young people out of work; the first double-dip recession since the 1970s; a lost decade for Britain’s families and pensioners, who are being subjected to the most sustained assault on their living standards in living memory; and a Government who are hurting, not helping.
Unfolding day by day in kitchens and living rooms in every town, village and city up and down this country is a cost-of-living crisis. Two of the biggest pressures on family budgets are rising energy bills and soaring transport costs, so my hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle), who will close the debate for the Opposition, and I could not let the Queen’s Speech pass without addressing those vital concerns.
The VAT hike will cost a family with children an extra £450 this year and push the price of petrol at the pumps even higher. Just when the costs of child care are rising twice as fast as wages, this Government have cut the child care element of working tax credit. While bankers have seen their taxes slashed, cuts to front-line services will mean fewer police on the beat, longer NHS waiting times and more families pushed to the brink because of the costs of social care and the closure of Sure Start children’s centres and other vital support for families.
We have a Government who stand up for the wrong people, with a Budget in which millions are asked to pay more so that millionaires can pay less; a Government who do more for the rail companies than for hard-pressed commuters; and a Government who put the energy companies before families struggling to make ends meet.
Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)
I am sorry to interrupt the rhetoric with some facts, but will the right hon. Lady remind the House what happened to rail and bus fares during 13 years of Labour Government, and can she confirm that Labour’s policy is that rail fares should continue to increase above inflation?
Caroline Flint
We saw what was happening and put a cap on those fares. This Government have decided to remove the cap and to let fares rise way above inflation, but we have said that when they do rise above inflation they should do so by no more than 1%, so we are not going to take any lectures about supporting families from the Tories and Liberal Democrats in this Government.
The truth is that in every corner of the country families have huge worries when they look at depressed and frozen wages, more part-time work and more people who are long-term unemployed; and every week families worry about energy bills.
Energy bills have now risen up the agenda for families and are one of the biggest worries that they face. The latest figures from Ofgem put the typical annual energy bill at £1,310, so what is the Government’s answer? At their energy summit last year, they told people:
“Check, switch and insulate to save.”
But, in an answer on 18 April to one of my parliamentary questions, we found out that fewer people switched energy supplier in the final month of 2011 than ever before. I do not remember seeing that in one of the departmental press releases.
The Government said that energy efficiency was a no-brainer, but the Warm Front scheme has collapsed, the energy companies are not delivering the measures that they were meant to and the green deal is in chaos. In last week’s Queen’s Speech the Government promised
“reform of the electricity market to deliver secure, clean and affordable electricity and ensure prices are fair,”
but the irony of the Government’s electricity market reforms is that one thing they do not do is reform the electricity market. There is no change to the way in which energy is bought and sold, nothing to open the books of the energy giants and nothing even to improve competition in the energy market and break the stranglehold of the big six: no change, no hope and, I am afraid, not a clue how to help families affected by those pressures on the cost of living.
Our energy market is not working in the public interest. Confidence in the energy companies is at a near-record low, complaints have soared and today five of the big six energy companies are under investigation by Ofgem. Yet they see fit to award themselves huge bonuses totalling millions of pounds and even discounts on their own energy bills, while leaving their customers to struggle.
Last winter, more than 6.6 million families and pensioners across the UK could not afford to heat their homes properly. The number of pensioners dying from hypothermia has doubled in the past five years. Yet four out of five people are paying more for their energy than they need to. Energy prices are already at near record levels, and last year, when wholesale prices rose, every energy company put up its gas and electricity prices, in some cases by as much as nearly 20%. Yet when wholesale prices fell this year, none of the companies cut both their gas and electricity prices. British Gas, for example, cut only its electricity prices, even though it has twice as many gas customers. On the other hand, EDF, which has significantly more electricity customers, cut only its gas prices. Now, with increases in wholesale prices on the horizon again, British Gas, Britain’s biggest energy supplier, is threatening yet another round of price hikes.
These are not the signs of a healthy, functioning competitive market; they are the symptoms of a market that works in the interests of the energy companies, not of the public. There is a reason the market works like that. We have companies that both produce and retail power. They generate the power and sell it to themselves, and then on to the public. When wholesale prices are high, the generation side of the business makes big profits; when wholesale prices are low, the retail side of the business makes big profits. Either way, the energy companies always make big profits and customers always foot the bill.
That was exactly what the respected Institute for Public Policy Research think-tank found a few weeks ago. Its research shows that if the market were truly competitive, efficiency savings alone would knock £70 a year off the average bill. It reckons that over 5 million households in the UK are currently being overcharged and that if something were done about it they could see savings of at least £300 a year. That is why we have said that all energy suppliers should have to sell the power that they generate into an open pool from which anyone could bid to retail to the public. That would allow new firms to enter the market, increase competition and help to drive down bills. Of course it would not be popular with the big energy companies, but unlike the Government, Labour Members are putting the interests of the public ahead of those in the energy industry.
Malcolm Wicks (Croydon North) (Lab)
Welcome to our debate, Mr Deputy Speaker; it is good to see you again.
My intention today is to talk about aspects of family life and how they relate to the “cost of living” theme. However, as a former Energy Minister, I am bound to say that I have been stimulated by the debate to make a few other remarks. Let me offer some friendly advice to the Secretary of State: his soundbite of the speech—that he is in favour of the “solar many” rather than the “solar few”—may not go viral. Indeed, I think it represents a formidable rewriting challenge for his speechwriters, if I may say so.
I will not get too cross with the Secretary of State for saying, as a bit of political knockabout, that the last Labour Government made no strategic decisions at all. Empirically, that is incorrect, as I think of the formidable legislation on climate change, which was supported throughout the House. For the first time, Parliament—the Labour Government were in power—decided to legislate to reduce carbon emissions. That is probably the most radically ambitious piece of legislation ever to go before this House. As I recall—I do not work for News International, so I do have a memory—it was also the Labour Government who set renewable energy targets, although they were more than just targets. [Interruption.] I hear a Member mumbling “Europe” at me from a sedentary position. I do not know whether it was a Eurosceptic, but yes, of course Europe is relevant; our party believes in Europe. We subscribe to European targets and during the period of the Labour Government we became the biggest country in the world in terms of investment in offshore wind. So much for us not having any strategic direction!
Malcolm Wicks
I will give way in a moment—if the intervention is a good one.
As a Government, we also tried to push forward carbon capture and storage—a formidable endeavour, and I congratulate the Norwegians on the progress they have made. It would be good to hear from the Government at some stage where they think we are on CCS because it is a vital part of our low-carbon objectives, given that despite renewables and nuclear, we will continue to invest in and use a great deal of fossil fuels in the future.
We also need to talk about nuclear energy. The withdrawal of the German consortium has been a formidable blow to our plans for nuclear energy, but I put it to the Secretary of State that, despite what he says, the last Labour Government’s decision to allow a new generation of civil nuclear reactors was a crucial strategic decision. As I recall—again I draw on my memory—one reason why Parliament took rather a long time to reach that decision was that one of our major parties, and I think it was the Liberal Democrats—
Malcolm Wicks
I am a kind person, and I suppose it was major until recently. That party was adamantly opposed to nuclear energy. I ask the Secretary of State whether he has now made a strategic realignment in his own mind to support nuclear energy. I hope he has. I think the fact that the Prime Minister has appointed Liberal Democrat Members to this important role of Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change shows that he maintains a sense of humour—one that he will need in the weeks and the trials, which is a term I use in the generic sense, to come.
While I am speaking about energy policy rather than family policy, which I shall come to in a moment, I want to emphasise the importance of the global context. We cannot discuss this issue only domestically. If I am right, the International Energy Agency projects in one of its central scenarios that global energy demand, mainly from non-OECD countries, will rise by about 40% by 2035. We must view our issues within that global context, we have to take energy security seriously and we have to build up what I have always called home-grown energy as much as we can, alongside reducing energy demand—hence the importance of nuclear and of renewable energy.
Dr Huppert
To rewind, let me say that the Climate Change Act 2008 was an excellent Act, and it had cross-party support. I am delighted that it was enacted. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that Governments have to take a lead in showing that they can use less energy? He will remember the 10:10 campaign, designed to persuade people across the country to reduce their energy usage by 10%. Does he regret the fact that his Government voted down a Liberal Democrat proposal that the entire Government should sign up to that? Will he congratulate this Government on signing up to it and on reducing energy usage by 14% in their first year?
Malcolm Wicks
What I am proud of is that across a range of fronts, including transport, where we saw the development of hybrid cars, for example—I do not say that the Labour Government were responsible for them, but we encouraged them—energy demand reduction in industry and in the service and retail sector, and, of course, literally on the home front, with our domestic dwellings, we made many efforts to reduce energy demand. We need to do deal a great deal more. Irrespective of what party we come from, the first item on the agenda for energy policy has to be energy efficiency. It is the cheapest and cleanest solution and the most secure, as we are not dependent on foreign shores for reducing energy demand. That is vital.
Sir Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)
It was deeply refreshing to listen to the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh) make—literally—a reactionary speech. We do not often hear such sentiments openly expressed in the House of Commons.
Although the hon. Gentleman claimed that he was seeking to bring us into the real world, he was actually creating a world of fantasy. He gave us two exemplars of countries with lower taxation rates. The first was Russia, one of the most corrupt economies in the world, and a country run to a large degree by corrupt oligarchs, where democracy is only marginal. In the United States, under their posturing President, taxation may be lower, but such is the extent of poverty that many, many millions of people live in abject poverty in slums, without jobs and food, under a Democrat President—something I never thought I would live to see. Statistically, the hon. Gentleman may claim those countries as exemplars, but I fear that in the real world not one of us would want to live in the United States or in Russia under the conditions that prevail there.
The hon. Gentleman talked about education, and young people rising from the ghetto. I represent a constituency that has some of the greatest deprivation in the kingdom. None of my constituents, whatever their income, would wish to be described as living in a ghetto, but the result of what the Government have done in two years, and what they propose in the Queen’s Speech, will be to turn parts of my constituency into a ghetto. I do not believe that the people I represent deserve the fate of living in such conditions.
The hon. Gentleman talked about cutting waste. Yes, of course all of us are strongly in favour of cutting waste, but it depends how we define waste. What the hon. Gentleman might regard as waste, large numbers of my constituents would regard as essential. For example, one of the best high schools in my constituency has opened a new kitchen—with finance from the Labour Government and Manchester council, although the building was completed under this Government—and the head teacher told me that for many of the children the meal they get in school is their only solid meal that day. We have to look at contexts.
I do not say this rudely. Just as the hon. Gentleman is an avowed reactionary, I am an avowed Keynesian. I believe in spending our way out of recession—while of course cutting out waste, as the hon. Gentleman recommends—because recession and poverty mean people out of work. According to today’s figures, just announced, 10.7% of people in my constituency are out of work. We have to give them benefits, however miserable they are to be, whereas if people had jobs they would be taking home money and paying taxes in order to fund the essential public services that the Government are attacking, downgrading and in some cases destroying.
In response to an intervention from one of my hon. Friends, the Secretary of State alleged that shameful scaremongering was coming from the Labour Benches, but the most shameful scaremongering of recent months was when the Prime Minister and the Minister for the Cabinet Office created a totally unnecessary panic about petrol supplies, which had appalling effects throughout the country. The Session that the Queen’s Speech covers will take us beyond the halfway point of the Parliament and into the run-up to the next general election, so one might think that the Government’s programme would deal with the problems and challenges of the present while looking to the future, including the cost of living issues referred to by my right hon. Friends the Members for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) and for Croydon North (Malcolm Wicks). No such luck.
The Queen’s Speech proposals are a combination of irrelevance and actual damage. The Government have no more idea how to deal with the cost of living problem and the severe economic problems they have created than before they created them. Instead, they are making the poor and deprived, and average families, pay the price for the massive handouts they are providing for their rich cronies, including big business and the banks. Their cronies do not worry about the cost of living. Sir Philip Green, an adviser to the Government, whose money is stowed away in Monaco through tax dodges, and Lord Ashcroft are not interested in what anything costs; they are only interested in how much tax they can dodge and in what they can buy with the money on which they pay little or no tax.
From young children to pensioners, from Sure Start to winter fuel payments—one of the most valued innovations of the Labour Government, but which the Conservatives opposed—this Government are already deliberately inflicting grave harm. Public service pensions, including those of the police, are being wrecked. Massive unemployment is being created; as I said, in my constituency, the figure announced today is 10.7%—the 47th worst constituency for unemployment.
The policing cuts are having devastating consequences. Inspector Damian O’Reilly, one of the greatest police officers in this country, and a recipient of the national award for community police officer of the year, told me that in my constituency the ability of the police to prevent and pursue crime, on both of which they have a first-rate record, will be harmed irreversibly. No wonder he and other police officers took part in the march last week. Today in Bournemouth the Home Secretary is being told by the chairman of the Police Federation that because of her policies, we are
“on the precipice of destroying a police service that is admired throughout the world”.
That is the situation under this Government.
Meanwhile, not only are the cruel cuts continuing while the cost of living continues to rise, but we are told that further cuts are planned—that this Government are planning £25 billion-worth of cuts, all targeting the most vulnerable in our society—and all this comes from Ministers who themselves will not in the slightest feel the impact of those cuts. The whole ethos of this Government was demonstrated a few days ago when it was disclosed that the Prime Minister had sent a text message—one of a barrage of such messages—to a wealthy and controversial crony, saying that they must avoid being seen together. And where? At the Heythrop point-to-point. It almost makes one laugh out loud—or should I say, lots of love?
This, in terms of cost of living, public services, creating unemployment and not creating wealth, is not only the most incompetent Government of my political lifetime, but the most right-wing that this country has had, with the connivance of the Liberal Democrats, since Neville Chamberlain in the 1930s—the most corrupt, but the most arrogant. The Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Home Secretary all refuse to sully their lily-white hands by replying personally to letters from Members of Parliament. The Prime Minister threw an infantile tantrum when he was called the other week to this House to respond—incompetently, inadequately and offensively—on a further example of current Government corruption.
The contrast with previous Conservative Governments is stark. Conservative Cabinet Ministers such as Douglas Hurd, Michael Heseltine, Willie Whitelaw and Margaret Thatcher all made themselves available to MPs seeking access on behalf of their constituents. Indeed, Margaret Thatcher issued an open invitation to MPs to come to No. 10 and discuss employment problems in their constituency with her. This Government, neither party of which has a majority and neither party of which has a mandate, are behaving in a far more right-wing way than Margaret Thatcher did when she had an overall majority with big electoral victories, which she scored over the Labour party at its worst.
If the Home Secretary, the worst in my experience, had been willing to take a hands-on approach to immigration problems, we might have avoided the awful crumbling mess in border control that she personally has created and which is in danger of humiliating this country as the Olympic games approach.
Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrats pursue irrelevancies, seeking always to advance not the interests of our constituents, but their own party’s self-interest, with an obsession with constitutional change which is irrelevant to the lives of our constituents, such as the alternative vote, on which happily they were defeated, and now the House of Lords, their action on which would gum up the parliamentary works—which might not be a bad thing, considering what damage the Government would otherwise seek to legislate.
Dr Huppert
I hope the right hon. Gentleman realises that he is the one who has raised this obsession. It was in his party’s manifesto as well, so I am sorry he feels that way. We have been focusing on things such as giving 24 million people who are poorly paid a tax cut, lifting the lower-paid people up. Will he welcome that as a Liberal Democrat obsession that will help many constituents across the country for all of us?
Sir Gerald Kaufman
What I would welcome would be for the hon. Gentleman, as parliamentary representative for a university city—the second university as between Oxford and Cambridge, naturally, but not a bad university in its way—to go to his constituency or stand up here and apologise for the deception of the Liberal Democrats on the issue of university fees.
Dr Huppert
I will make no apology for the fact that I voted against fees. I will make no apology for the fact that I campaigned against them when Labour introduced them, having a large majority and having promised not to do so, and when they tripled them, having promised never to increase them again, and claimed that they had legislated against them. Will the right hon. Gentleman apologise for that deceit?
Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)
It is entertaining to follow the speeches from the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh) and the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman), who have shown that there is an obsession about House of Lords reform, at least in trying to stop it, among certain people who have been in this House for a very long time. It is a project that has been going on for a long time, too. It was in all three party manifestos. We can achieve it; it does not have to be an obsession for any of us.
Dr Huppert
If the Deputy Speaker does not object, I will happily take an intervention.
Mr MacNeil
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that House of Lords reform will not be meaningful in this place while there are a number of people hanging around who view the House of Lords as a political lifeboat when their careers here are finished?
Dr Huppert
I do agree, and at some point we can have the debate about why we need that reform to have a properly democratically accountable Chamber in the other place, but now is not that time.
We heard an interesting take from the hon. Member for Gainsborough on how the Government would be doing much better if they were a pure Conservative Government—they would be cutting much more—and we heard from the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton that they are cutting far too savagely. The truth is that a pure Conservative Government probably would be cutting more and we are acting as a restraint on that and trying to achieve the correct outcome, which lies somewhere between the—in my view—excessive cuts advocated by one side and the continued overspending advocated by the other.
There is often a debate about Keynesian economics. Keynes was a good Liberal and a good Cambridge man, and he said a number of very sensible things. One was about making sure that we spend in recessions, but the flip side of that is that we do not spend as much during the boom years, so that we have money left. We cannot spend in the boom and also have money to spend in the bust; it simply does not work. Keynes was also clear about how much could be spent and, indeed, the high priority on keeping bond yields low so all that could be afforded. He was a very complex man and his work should not be reduced to a simple catch phrase.
I want to talk about the cost of living in relation to transport, because it is one of the areas I focus on in this House and on which I lead for the Liberal Democrats, but also because it is one of the few parts of Government activity that affects most people pretty much every day of their lives. Transport has a huge effect on us, and the cost of travel affects a huge amount of what we do throughout our lives. Governments for many decades, when focusing on the cost of transport, have thought principally about cars; too little thought has been given to cycling, walking and public transport.
The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr Simon Burns)
And train spotting.
Dr Huppert
Let us consider the railways, as the Minister suggests. We know about the cuts. The length of our railway network has halved since 1950, but ever since 1980 the number of people using the network has doubled, resulting in a crippling downward spiral in which fare rises have been used to prop up a creaking system while services have declined. British railways are now 30% less efficient and 30% more expensive than their European counterparts. Under Labour, fares rose significantly above inflation year on year. The shadow Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change did not seem to know the figures when I challenged her on this earlier, so let me give them to the shadow Secretary of State for Transport. Rail fares during Labour’s 13 years in government went up by 66%—inflation over that period was 17% in real terms—which is a huge increase. Even now their policy has not changed; it is still to have rail fares going up above inflation. Even the amendment to the motion calls for rail fares to go up 1% above inflation.
Dr Huppert
I would be delighted to hear the shadow Secretary of State say that Labour accepts that fares are too high but, if she will not, will she confirm that her policy is still to have rail fares going up above inflation?
Maria Eagle
The hon. Gentleman fought the last general election on a promise to cut rail fares. His party and the Government whom he supports now support rail fare rises of 3% above the retail prices index. He voted for that. He is being just a tad hypocritical.
Dr Huppert
I am sorry that the shadow Secretary of State is not prepared to defend her party’s record in government or the fact that it is still calling for fares to rise above inflation. I would like them to go below inflation—[Interruption.] If the hon. Lady listened more and spoke less, she would hear what I am going to say. I think that rail fares need to come down, but we do not have a majority Government. As we heard earlier from the hon. Member for Gainsborough, this is not a pure Conservative Government, but it is not a pure Liberal Democrat Government either.
George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that it was the Labour-led Transport Committee that produced the analysis revealing that the Labour party had shown “breathtaking complacency” towards value for money on customers’ rail fares?
Dr Huppert
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely correct, as he so often is on rail matters. The Labour Government failed on trains and, rather than trying to patch it up now, are looking for short-term political advantage.
Let me move on from trains to buses. We talk a lot about trains, but buses are used hugely. What is Labour’s record on buses? Bus fares during Labour’s years in government went up by 76%—24% in real terms—which is a huge amount, and that affects the cost of living for people who try to travel by bus. We know that there is a different socio-economic distribution for people who take buses, compared with those who take trains, so this is very tough.
In 2008, Dr Iain Docherty of Glasgow university and Professor Jon Shaw of the university of Plymouth reviewed Labour’s 10-year transport strategy and said that it was a failure. Bus services were described as “poor” compared with the rest of Europe. They said that the Government had pursued the
“wrong kinds of transport policies”.
To their credit, we saw some success in London, but that was the only part of the country that saw the sort of devolution and innovation that we would like to see across the country. Outside London, from 1997 to 2008, when the report was written, the number of bus trips fell by 10%, which is not exactly a resounding victory for Labour’s centralising 10-year plan, and something that the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Norman Baker), is taking steps to change.
We all know that our roads are utterly unsustainable. We have not yet managed to decarbonise our cars adequately. We failed to support the basic principle that road users should have to pay to use the roads, and the tax system has problems. Treasury Ministers are already nervous about how they will fund road infrastructure in future as we manage to reduce the use of fossil fuels.
I am proud of much of what the Government are doing on transport, although not absolutely everything, and pleased about the work being done by the Under-Secretary on issues such as cycling and bus use, which I will say more about later. I am also proud of the work being done by the other Transport Ministers. However, we need more radical and liberal thinking to heal our sclerotic transport network. What we need are bold reforms, but I am sad to say that what we have from the Opposition is short-term politicking, not long-term and evidence-based public policy making.
Let me give an example. The shadow Secretary of State made an interesting series of comments to The Guardian recently. She said that she accepted two thirds of the coalition’s transport spending cuts. I think we all agree with her when she said:
“Labour will not be elected unless it has credibility on the deficit and recognises the new economic reality.”
She said that she was committed to two thirds of the cuts. The interesting question is this: which two thirds? It is a nice game to keep whichever third of things seems politically sensible and cut the things that are not popular. I have been trying to find out from the hon. Lady—
Maria Eagle
I have replied to the hon. Gentleman’s letter, but I can tell him that Labour supported the entire £1.7 billion of efficiencies that Ministers have required across the transport expenditure. We have not opposed cuts beyond those efficiency savings in the Highways Agency totalling £3 billion or in Transport for London totalling £1.7 billion, a total of £4.7 billion, so we have not opposed £6.4 billion of cuts, which is more than two thirds of the efficiencies and cuts that the Government are making. But we would not have made the other £3 billion of cuts, which would have given us extra money so that we could cap annual fare rises, protect local bus services and deliver additional investment. Our plan is quite clear.
Dr Huppert
The hon. Lady is absolutely correct. I wrote to her in February asking for the figures and it took her over a month to respond—
Dr Huppert
I absolutely agree with the right hon. Lady that that is pathetic—[Interruption.]
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. This is not a general conversation; it is a debate and Dr Julian Huppert has the Floor.
Dr Huppert
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. It took the hon. Lady over a month to direct me to a speech in which a shadow Minister outlined some of those figures. I do not know how much was made in the London election about the fact that Labour proposed taking £1.73 billion out of the TfL budget, which is interesting, but the key point is that she is yet to reply to a letter I wrote to her a month ago asking, of the £3.36 billion that she would take out of the Highways Agency’s budget, as opposed to the half a billion she would leave in, which—
Dr Huppert
I will if the hon. Lady lets me finish my sentence. Which half a billion pounds would she leave in, and which £3.36 billion would she take out? She has not responded to the letter, but she can respond now.
Maria Eagle
I promise to respond in great detail to the hon. Gentleman when he gets his ministerial team to reply to letters from me and to answer parliamentary questions properly.
Dr Huppert
I am flattered by the shadow Secretary of State’s faith that I have the power to control the ministerial team. She can certainly control when she responds to letters, and I think that a delay of over a month is rather poor. I am sure that she thinks she has better things to do, but I would still love to hear how Labour would fund the rest of its budget on this area.
If the Opposition are truly concerned about the cost of living, surely one way of addressing that is to let people keep more of the money they earn. Raising the income tax threshold puts money back into people’s pockets and lets them spend it on whatever they want: rail fares, fuel for their car, a new bike, bus tickets, training, or whatever it is that they would like to do with that money. Of course, that is something that Liberal Democrats campaigned for and it was on the first page of our manifesto, and it is exactly what Liberal Democrats in government are doing and which, for reasons I simply do not understand, the Opposition voted against. I simply fail to understand why they are against giving money back to people who earn £10,000 a year. It makes no sense to me. I assume it was some sort of error, like the fact that they failed to vote on various aspects of the Budget which they said they would vote on.
In my view, this tax cut, combined with the uprating of unemployment benefits and the triple lock in pensions so that pensioners get a better deal than the 75p that the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) offered them, is exactly the right mix of measures. It allows people to keep their money and spend it as they please when times are tight. It is a responsible, liberal approach, and one that we need to take further, as I am sure we will do during the rest of the Parliament, but it is there—[Interruption]—and it has been supported by the Conservatives, as the hon. Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman) reminds me.
But let me return to rail fares. I passionately believe that rail fares are too high and need to be lower, and, unlike Labour and the Conservatives, both of which have argued for above-inflation increases, we in the Liberal Democrats believe that they are too high and should not be made any higher. I am delighted that we managed to persuade our coalition colleagues to reduce the most recent rise by 2%, and I have to say that Conservative Transport Ministers supported it.
I hope that we can do the same or better in the years to come, but it cannot be a one-off measure; it has to be part of the kind of serious structural reform that the McNulty review will bring. If it is true that the McNulty changes will save £1 billion a year, half of it should be used to reduce rail fares and half to invest further in rail infrastructure, although this Government are already investing massively in our railways—more than any Government since Victorian times.
We have committed to electrifying more than 800 miles of track. How much did Labour manage? The answer is less than 10 miles, in 13 years: less than 1 mile per year. The Victorians would not have been impressed by that rate. The Liberal Democrats in government are firmly committed to getting people and freight on to our railways so that they do not take up space on our roads, and that applies to my local road, the A14, where we have to ensure that as much freight as possible is put on to railways in order to avoid the congestion that we see. We need to invest in services to make them cheaper, more affordable and more attractive. That is the right thing to do.
What about buses? We believe firmly that the way forward is devolution, community involvement and more effective funding. Services have to be local for them to be popular and effective, and communities must have their say in the governance of local buses. I believe, from what the shadow Secretary of State says, that the Labour party is finally looking at ways of devolving bus services. We have argued for that measure for decades, so I am delighted that Labour agrees, and I hope that we will be able to deliver it. We have had less than two years with very little money to spend; Labour had 13 years, so I am delighted that it is finally coming around to the idea and I hope that we will be able to deliver it. Indeed, I hope that Labour supports the reforms that we are implementing, such as the local sustainable transport fund, which is delivering £500 million to local communities. Just before the Queen’s Speech my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary announced new funds for better bus areas and green buses: a £120 million boost for buses which will enable people to take affordable buses more easily.
By trusting communities to do what is best for themselves, we are revolutionising bus travel. Already since 2010 we have seen bus patronage rise outside London and throughout the country, and seen funding for 439 low-carbon buses, helping us to be a much greener Government. That is a fantastic achievement after a decade of decline and without spare money to slosh around.
Of course, if we really want to reduce the cost of living, we will find that there are even cheaper forms of transport. A huge number of journeys could be taken on foot or by bike, and that really would save people money. More people should do that. This Government have invested millions of pounds in promoting cycling, from the local sustainable transport fund, to Sustrans funding for new routes, bikeability training and new cycle-rail links, and they have also taken other steps to promote safe cycling by, for example, making it easier to introduce 20 mph zones.
We have heard much from the Opposition about the lack of a Bill in the Queen’s Speech to deal specifically with the cost of living, but we have heard also from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change about the steps being taken with the Bills that are in the Queen’s Speech, and in any case the Opposition should know that it is not necessary to announce a Bill in a Queen’s Speech in order to help with the cost of living. Not everything needs legislation.
Laura Sandys
This Queen’s Speech is very much directed at the consumer and at consumer prices. We have a draft water Bill, which is looking at supporting water prices; the grocery adjudicator measure, which is looking to develop a much more effective supply chain and to deliver better prices to consumers; and we have an energy Bill, which will make the market more responsive to the consumer. This is a consumers’ Queen’s Speech.
Dr Huppert
I thank the hon. Lady for her comments—and I will leave out the next paragraph of my speech. She is absolutely correct to highlight the importance of all those issues, which will make a real difference to consumers, as will a range of other activities, such as breaking up the banks so that they can focus more on consumers and less on the casino capitalism that we saw in the previous decade.
We do not need to legislate to make a difference. We gave money back to millions of working people without any new Bill; it did not take a Bill to make that happen. After reams and reams of failed legislation, one would have thought that Labour would have learned one simple fact: we cannot just legislate our way out of a problem. But I am not surprised that Labour’s response to a Queen’s Speech that, as well as the items mentioned earlier, finally tackles defamation law and Lords reform is that we need more legislation. It is certainly true that if the test of a successful Government was the volume of laws they introduced, 13 years of Labour would have been an unmitigated success, because the sheer volume of legislation was a record, but that is not what government is about.
I am deeply proud to be a Liberal Democrat in government, standing up to vested interests to ensure that every citizen, no matter how poor, will be able to protect their reputation from defamation—and that we will not see the chills that we have seen from the threat of action. I am proud that we are tackling constitutional reform, because I am sure that all honest politicians know that the Government are quite capable of doing more than one thing at once, and of course we are cleaning up the mess that this country was left in by Labour and continues to be left in by what is happening in the eurozone.
There is much more to do on fares, and I should like to see a more efficient local transport system with greater support for community services, which is something we are already working on, but we have achieved a lot with what we have got—much more than can be said for the squandered Blair-Brown years. In 1997 a Liberal Democrat majority Government, enjoying an unprecedented period of global growth, would not have jacked up fares year after year. We would not have let transport services decay in the dead hand of Whitehall, and we would certainly not have introduced tuition fees in the way the Labour party did.
Dr Huppert
I should like to conclude so that others can speak.
I welcome the Queen’s Speech and all the things that Liberal Democrats in government have done already to help with the cost of living. I hope to see members of the Labour party welcome those achievements and support our measures, which will put our transport system on a sustainable footing for the long term and help to reduce the cost of living for everyone in this country.